Nicola L.

Nicola L. White Sofa, 1970–72; Egg Round Table (Homage to Marcel Broodthaers), 2008; Atmosphere, 2005. Photograph by Mark McNulty.

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Nicola L's installation for a Needle Walks into a Haystake entitled Atmosphere in White (2014), included, in her words, ‘some of the Functional Art objects that I have been producing since the 60s. I have chosen this name because every single one of these objects is white, and this shared whiteness binds them together as a sort of dream-memory.’

In considering her symbols, she quotes poet and explorer Alain Gheerbrant and cultural anthropologist Jean Chevalier: ‘White is not a solar colour. It is not the colour of dawn, but the colour of dusk, that moment of total emptiness between night and day, when the oneiric world still blankets all of reality.’

Nicola L. (b.France) lives in New York. Nicola L. had a retrospective of her work in 2002 at Gallery La Casona, Havana; and her writing was published by Black Dog in see yourself sensing, 2011. She was awarded a full scholarship to study at L’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts at the age of 19. Since her first performance in 1967, her work has been shown worldwide. In 1970 at Galerie Apollinaire, Milan, she exhibited the Fur Room. In 1975, Harald Szeemann included two works by Nicola L. in his exhibition, JE/NOUS, at Musée d'Ixelles in Belgium. Other significant exhibitions include shows at The Art Museum, Florida, 1993; Musee D’Art Contemporain, Nice, France 1996; MAMCO Museum of Contemporary Art, Geneva, 2001 and 2006; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2009; 21st Gallery, New York, 2009; and at Broadway 1602, New York, 2013.